It's been a while since I've been in a good juicy brainstorm, let alone facilitating one. Experience tells me that my brain is ever so limited in it's own first person perspective & memory, so I enjoy collaborating with others. One brain vs. 5 brains...Bah! Five brains, of course!
At this stage, my project had a bit of research behind it, but the scope & objectives were pretty scattered. I narrowed the topic down to things that I found interesting or trending- like smart-phone married cashless-transactions & mass mingling (the love to connect). Then I wrote up some power questions & fed it to some people for their ideas & opinions. In exchange for cookies (yum)
I was really happy with the enthusiasm of the group and the momentum fueling some of the responses. It was a bit slow at first, but for a group who has never done a brainstorm before, I tip my hat to the breadth of the ideas and the open-mindedness in the discussion.
The next steps are to organize all these ideas, see what kind of golden nuggets of innovation can be further developed, and continue to the ideation/concepting phase. Woot! I won't take you through the process now- but recap on the results later after the chaos of the synthesis storm passes.
Takeaways for now: The Brainstorm
Things I knew before, but was reiterated as important again...
- Know the material-
I tried to understand my questions thoroughly & remember the research that prompted these questions. Good thing too, as I found myself needing to use research or real-like examples to resuscitate a slow moving discussion.
Like, when I asked a question about what kind of behavioral information might supermarket customers be interested in learning about themselves, I spring-boarded the discussion with an example of NikePlus' successful use to offer runners a means of tracking, storing, and quantifying their running performance. So do your research and know your
This may seem counter-intuitive, as brainstorms generally are regarded as free-flowing wild discussions, but good brainstorms are moderated to stay on track. It helps when the questions are fed in an organized sequence, otherwise going back to a topic that may have already been discussed exhaustively could break the momentum.
-Juice up-
Okay, this is just to make sure everyone is "awake" & fresh enough to jump into blue-sky brainstorms. I scheduled my brainstorm in the morning, and I wish I had brought a pot of morning sunshine (coffee). Fortunately, the sugar rush of the cookies helped!!!
What was cool....
-Was having an eclectic group-
I had a mix of seniors & juniors, an exchange student, and a mix of people's personal history that made this brainstorm fruitful.
Next time...
I think I'll expand outside the industrial design studios and venture to ask the architecture, digital, graphic, and fine arts kids. That would be so funtastic, no?
Maybe I'll video tape the whole thing too. And spend more time warming up with a game; and have a stash of a few games up my sleeve, as sometimes one kind doesn't always set fire to the imagination...
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